Manual

Digico isn’t a name you hear talked about
very frequently in music-production
circles, although they are well established
and respected in the broadcast and
live-sound sectors. However, one of
their latest products should appeal to
those wanting to achieve high channel
counts in music-production facilities, as it
enables you to add up to 48 channels of
MADI-format digital I/O to a Mac or PC
via USB. I can see many people finding
that useful, as I’m seeing increasing
numbers of MADI-equipped converters
and mixers coming through SOS Towers,
and prices seem to be coming down
— yet if you just need a simple way of
hooking up a laptop to such a MADI
system, the options are few and far
between. And if you want a compact
device that does that, then you currently
have a choice of one...
The Digico UB MADI is a simple,
no-frills USB-to-MADI converter, which
connects to either Macs (running OS
10.7.4 onwards) or Windows 7 PCs via
USB2. The USB2 socket — through
which the unit also draws its power —
is on one end of this robust device,
and the MADI outputs and inputs are
presented and received via a pair of
coaxial connectors at the other. Any
AES10-compatible device that uses this
connection format should work, but the
UB MADI only supports up to 48 inputs
and outputs at 48kHz. This channel-
count limitation is a consequence of the
limited bandwidth of the USB2 format.
It’s understandable that Digico chose
to use USB2, though, as there are many
computers in service that can’t currently
make use of USB3. It would have been
nice to be able to select your 48 channels
from any of the 56 or 64 being presented
at the input, but at present you can only
access the first 48 channels. However,
Digico tell me that their own consoles will
soon provide the engineer with the ability
to map any stage rack or local input to
any of the 48 MADI channels. The UB
MADI can also accept AES3 stereo and
word-clock signals.
Installation on my Windows 7 64-bit
system was simple and speedy; the
drivers are supplied on a wafer-thin 4GB
USB drive, and a suitable USB cable is
provided. Digico’s ASIO driver appeared
in my DAW (Cubase 7 64-bit) without
a hitch, and with all 48 channels of I/O
present for selection. There is, however,
no mixer utility, akin to RME’s TotalMix
or MOTU’s CueMix. With no external
input connected, the UB MADI clocks
its output to its own internal clock, but
when a MADI, AES3 or word clock is
detected, this is automatically used as
the system clock. Latency, of course,
is system-dependent, with different
converters affecting the round-trip
latency, but I detected no problems with
(in)stability or clocking during my tests.
It’s worth pointing out that if you’re
trying to get 48 channels of audio in
and out of your computer via USB, it’s
a good idea to give this interface its
own USB port, rather than sharing with
hard drives, computer keyboards, mice
and so on. You’ll also need a computer
and hard drives that are up to the task
of reading and writing that much audio
data simultaneously. That’s not a problem
for most modern systems with dedicated
audio drives, but some older systems
may prove more problematic, as may
reading or writing to a system drive.
(That, of course, is a universal problem
with computer recording, not with the UB
MADI itself!)
Given that this product is aimed
squarely at the professional market,
and that it’s the first dedicated USB
MADI interface on the market, it’s no
surprise that it isn’t exactly ‘cheap’. The
UB MADI has no A-D or D-A conversion
built in, yet for a little over twice the
price, the Antelope Audio Orion 32
offers the choice of MADI or 32-channel
analogue I/O. There’s also no provision
for optical MADI connectivity, meaning
that you can’t use the UB MADI with, for
example, the Ferrofish A16 Ultra MkII
(currently the most affordable analogue-
to-MADI converter) or other such devices
without investing in an optical-to-coaxial
converter. Digico do offer interfaces with
both optical and coaxial connectors, but
they’re more expensive.
However, if you already own, or have
access to, a MADI system, the UB MADI
is a really useful option, and should
appeal to anyone wanting to hook a
laptop into an existing MADI system,
whether in a studio or a venue. Just
before we went to press, RME announced
a couple of new USB MADI systems that
offer a little more functionality. They’re
a little bulkier, but still very portable,
and although the prices are yet to be
announced, they look like they’ll provide
some keen competition for Digico’s natty
little gadget. But for the moment, the
UB MADI does something that nothing
else does for the same money. It’s the
most compact and portable device I can
imagine doing it, and for that reason I’m
sure it will have genuine appeal for many.
Matt Houghton
£900 including VAT. £
www.digico.biz W
Digico UB MADI
USB MADI Interface For Mac & PC
ON TEST
168
June 2013 / www.soundonsound.com